Jim Kelly once said, “There’s not one person who’s even been through our training camp who could cover him. Nobody could cover him one-on-one”. Jim Kelly wasn’t referring to Andre Reed (HoF WR) or James Lofton, he was referring to Steve Tasker who only had 51 career receptions over 14 years in the NFL. Steve Tasker was 5’9’’ was arguably the best gunner in NFL history making 7 Pro Bowls and was the only special teams player to ever earn Pro Bowl MVP (1993). A gunner is a position on the special teams who’s sole role is to break free from defenders during a punt to tackle the returner and limit their return yardage. The goal of my analysis is to build on the initial research done by Michael Lopez build on the initial research done by Michael Lopez to add specific metrics to evaluate Gunners in the NFL.
We will be using 2020 tracking and scouting information to create four metrics to evaluate Gunner effectiveness during punts. The metrics are:
1. Tackle Opportunity Probability Added
2. Expected Gunner Distance at Punt Reception Under Expected
3. Expected Return Yards Under Expected
4. Expected Return Yards Under Exepcted (Returned Punts)
These four metrics will help to measure which gunners put themselves in the best position to limit yardage from the returner, which is their ultimate job.
The animated play below is 3 yard punt return where two Gunners, Nsimba Webster (#14) and David Long (#25), are vying to either limit return yardage, get a tackle opportunity or force a fair catch. In this example, Webster here is credited with the tackle. This visual helps to portray a common punt so we will use this play to illustrate gunner effectiveness. First, we want to define tackle opportunity (or involvement), which we’ve defined as either being the primary tackler, assist tackler, or even having a missed tackle. Regardless, involvement in tackling, whether converted or not, we believe is important to measure.
If we break down the tackle opportunity by frame, Webster had ~30% probability of a tackle at snap, ~28% at punt reception. Despite the ~0.02 probability added, we can see a wide variation in probability between that timeframe. At the lowest, the probability dropped 18% and the high we see a 30% probability (at the snap) and had ~25.3% average probability through the duration of the play.
The reason for Webster’s drop in probability to 18% was that he had beat his vises (#29) at the snap, #18 on the receiving team recognizes this and sealed the block. The increase back in probability is due to the fact that by gaining the attention of the second defender, he actually created a log jam at the receiver thus limiting his potential return yardage and increasing his probability of a tackle opportunity (Again, Webster was credited with the tackle).
This scenario helps to paint a good picture of how critical the Gunner’s are in tackling the returner.